Let's See Your Mill

[Rickabilly]

(07-18-2012, 05:55 AM)Bogstandard Wrote: Rick,

What you have to realise, the Z feed not only has to drill and bore the holes, ie, cutting metal, it also has to lift that very large casting under the table, the table itself with all the stuff hanging on it, RT, vice and of course two more power feeds as well. Guesstimated weight, 400 to 500 pounds. The whole machine weighs around a ton.

So unless you are drilling something like 6" diameter holes from a 1/4" centre hole, I think it could cope with your large tailstock.

I limited myself to 1.5" holes for drilling, over that, I then bore it out, purely because that is the size of my largest drill.

Hello John,
1.5" is a pretty normal sized hole for me with the largest I have drilled being 4" but I envisage that 2" will be about my limit from here on in. I have seen these types of feed units on z axes for a little while now but my limited experience with them wasn't great, being that most of my mills have been more "Industrial" I've had quite a few import mills over the years but only one with an "off the shelf" aftermarket feed unit, and lets just say it was less than reliable, and that was just on the x axis, so I thought with the z as you say lifting all that weight as well as drilling it just might be worth asking the question. Thanks for your opinion on the matter.
Best regards
Rick